PM BUZZ

Published 4:00 am, Tuesday, July 6, 1999

The LPGA Jamie Farr Classic went into a rare six-player playoff, which caught at least one of the participants by surprise.

Kelli Kuehne, who recorded a 5-under-par 66 earlier in the day, had to be summoned by cell phone after leaving the course. Down by two shots with Koch playing the finishing hole, she thought she had been eliminated from a potential playoff. She and her fiance headed to a restaurant 10 minutes away and ate dinner.

While talking on her phone in her hotel parking lot, she noticed she had a message. When she checked it, it was an LPGA official frantically telling her she was in the playoff.

"I drive like 90 mph coming here. OK, it's my first playoff and I'm not even going to be here for the tee-off," the second-year player said. "But it was good for me because I didn't have the time or the chance to be nervous."

She lost to Se Ri Pak, who birdied the first playoff hole to win the event for the second year in a row.

MONSTER MASHING: Sammy Sosa, who leads the majors with 32 home runs and is expected to be the National League's top vote-getter when the NL All-Star team is announced Tuesday, said he'll compete in the home-run contest at Fenway Park. But not because he'd go head-to-head with Mark McGwire.

He wants a few shots at that juicy Green Monster.

"It could be me against "Hercules,' " Sosa said. "It doesn't matter."

ANYTHING YOU CAN DO. . .: Will Women's World Cup star Mia Hamm ever sign with a Major League Soccer team? While the idea has been kicked around more than once over the past few weeks, Hamm said don't expect her or any other female soccer player to be kicking a ball in any all-male MLS game anytime soon.

Hamm, the world's all-time leading women's goal scorer, said it would be hard to compete with the likes of fellow American Joe-Max Moore or Bolivian striker Marco Ethcheverry.

"It will never happen," she said. "I'll get wiped off the field. It's flattering but I couldn't compete at that level with those guys."

"We have to keep everything in perspective. In 1950 nobody went to an NBA game. Fifty years later they're global. Of course, the women's professional league has to start someplace. I think women's athletics are here to stay and I think women's soccer can be a great entertainment product."

The three-time former singles champion, who plays mainly on the Seniors Tour but teamed with Graf in the mixed doubles, was disappointed he didn't finish with a title. He and Graf reached the semifinals, but then Graf, who was still in contention for her eighth singles title, withdrew to avoid aggravating a thigh muscle injury.

"I would like to have had one last chance, but when Steffi Graf withdrew, it had gone," McEnroe wrote in Monday's Daily Telegraph. "This is probably my last Wimbledon as a major factor. Maybe no one cared but I care. My kids were here, they cared. I wanted to try and win the championship and what happens still feels like a punch in the stomach. It didn't feel as though I said a proper goodbye." &lt;

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